A little help from Shirley Temple

On the heels of her death in February comes an intriguing new book examining the legacy of Shirley Temple. Author John F. Kasson confines his study to the child star’s impact on popular culture at a time when escapist entertainment was both luxury and dire necessity. The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression may sound like hyperbole, but Temple’s impact on the nation’s self-image proves unimpeachable.

Getting through the presidency

Bill Clinton aspired to be another Franklin D. Roosevelt, someone whose presidency historians would rightly view as epochal. John F. Harris, who covered the last six years of Clinton's administration for the Washington Post, concludes in The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House that he fell considerably short of that mark. But Harris credits him with being more effective and courageous...

Books for grown-up baby boomers If you've been watching closely, you've noticed that members of the generation born between 1946 and 1964 are often now simply called boomers rather than the more formal baby boomers, as they used to be known. Sure, the simple boomers is snappier and hipper-sounding. It's also a lot more accurate. That's because the generation whose size, influence, and...